The Industrial Ethernet Book - Articles: IPv6: The views from industry

Technical Article: IPv6: The views from industry

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From Andreas Pfeiffer, Bernecker + Rainer Industrie- Elektronik, and chairman, Ethernet Powerlink SG

In the beginning there were many competing approaches to Internet addressing, all with various strengths and weaknesses. Later on an effort was started combining the best of all approaches and keeping out each of their individual weaknesses. A working group within the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) was founded to focus on the new generation of the Internet Protocol (IPnG). Lengthy discussions began over the need to support either 64 or 128 bit addresses. That IPv4 only supports 32 bits for addressing makes it more difficult to assign addresses for network domains networked devices. The supporters of the 128 bit version succeeded. The new IP version would theoretically allow to assign ~2.6 trillion addresses per square millimetre on our home planet. In 1997 IPv6 became a draft standard. Besides almost unlimited address space IPv6 offers:

Simpler auto-configuration of addresses
Header Format Simplification to reduce the common-case processing cost of packet handling
Improved Support for Extensions and Options
Flow Labelling Capability for requesting special handling such as "real-time" service.
Authentication and Privacy Capabilities

It sounds like we've now got all the enhancements everybody in cyberspace was waiting for so why aren't we all using IPv6 already?

As it is with every new technology there are a few early adopters starting immediately with implementations and a majority looking at the real value first. Thus, many are waiting for others to make the first step. Providers are hesitant since they cannot evaluate what difficulties they may face when migrating to IPv6, and there is no real demand from the end-user for just another protocol. Frankly, end-users don't really care what protocol transports their data from end to end. They expect the providers to take care about the detail.

Some component vendors have introduced some IPv6 enabled beta versions of their products. However, it is still too much of a risk for them to fully commercialise these products. Perhaps carriers may even fear the risk that regular connection-based services may be replaced by the improved packet-oriented services enabled by v6.

Migrating from IPv4 to IPv6 does not only affect routers and network devices: it also impacts both software and hardware. Literally every occurrence of an IP-number in data structures of operating systems, data bases and applications need to be changed. Thus many systems cannot be changed in short time - or will ever be touched at all.

There are also comments that the new protocol is over-featured. Some experts predict that only a down-sized version will be able to make it. In addition, techniques like network address translation has taken some pressure off the potential address space limitations of IPv4.

Now, what does this all mean for Industrial Ethernet? There is simply no need to implement IPv6 immediately. However, the industrial market needs to be prepared when the IT market begins adopting IPv6 on a broad basis. The present uncertainty pervading the world of office automation underlines the importance of implementing only international standards-based Industrial Ethernet technology.

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